Archive for the 'B2B Marketing' Category

3 Reasons Why My Blog is Effective and Fulfilling

  1. Content Conveys our Expertise and Value Proposition – If you read 2 or 3 entries of this blog, you will learn what StartUpSelling provides, why we feel it is important and how we believe we are different. This sounds like information that would be included in a sales pitch, but in a blog it is woven into the fabric of useful and educational information. Blogging allows prospects to learn and glean valuable insights without commitment, and allows the writer to deliver their marketing message – at the same time.
  2. Its Another Venue to Interact with Clients and Prospects – Some prospects like to talk on the phone, some like to interact via email, some like to connect on LinkedIn. Others like to read your content for weeks or even months before they develop an interest in the source. We regularly have conversations with prospects who explain they have been following our blogs and over time realized that their needs exceeded what they can read about and implement internally – now they enter our pipeline.
  3. Blogging Allows me to Share What I Learn Expeditiously  - When I am working with clients and colleagues or learning from other industry experts I pick up many useful insights and concepts. A B2B blog gives me the opportunity to quickly apply that insight and pass along the information. A few minutes ago I had a reminder of the value of a blog, now I am sharing that reminder with you.

 

Sales & Marketing Help for $15 or Less

I speak with salespeople every day who are looking for sales and marketing assistance.  Seeking greater exposure, more opportunities and improved sales processes.  Some are not yet ready to invest in comprehensive solutions like we provide and are looking for a low cost alternative.  Here are two tools, which cost less than $15 combined, that will help you get started:

Sell More & Work Less: Web Selling Techniques Everyone Should Use

The more virtual your business, the more flexible the hours, the lower the overhead, and the greater the profit potential. Sell More & Work Less will help sales professionals seeking to sell better and more efficiently, a cash-poor entrepreneur, a small business scrambling for expansion capital, an existing business seeking to improve profits, or an independent professional hoping to improve the top line.

Web based selling is the wave of the future – and available now – for all salespeople and businesses. Even a partially web based sales operation can be more efficient, more effective and more profitable that a traditional brick and mortar operation. Sell More & Work Less is a fast and easy read, offering quick tips, in depth reviews and real world scenarios to help existing or aspiring sales people to sell more… and work less.

The Prospect Scorecard

The Prospect Scorecard offers salespeople and businesses a simple and easy way to qualify, track and rank their best prospects. Salespeople, sales managers, entrepreneurs, sole proprietors, insurance agents, realtors and other business people often refer to prospects in vague terms such as: new, warm, hot, cold, likely, qualified, etc. These terms do little to better understand a sales pipeline or convey likelihood of purchase to other members of the team. The Prospect Scorecard resolves this issue, simply, quickly and easily for any salesperson or business.

What does your perfect client look like? Create a Prospect Scorecard to quantify your approach to prospecting and pipeline building. Some of the attributes of your ideal client might include revenue, growth rate, client type (business or consumer) and market niche. For example, are you targeting companies between $5 million and $10 million in revenue? Are your best prospects fast-growing firms like those found on the Inc. 500 list? Are you selling to consumers? If you’re selling to consumers, are they high net worth prospects, middle income, younger or older? Are your prospects in a specific niche market such as banking, insurance, biotech, plumbing, consulting, education, etc.? Create a Prospect Scorecard with your ideal attributes and a customized qualification abbreviation to help you determine if you are selling to an in-profile prospect.

Integrated Marketing + Calling and Emailing High and Wide = More Business

In our new book Sell More & Work Less, we talk about calling and emailing high and wide.  By calling high we mean calling the top level executives.  By calling wide we mean reaching out to several contacts, including some who may not have titles you think directly apply to your opportunity.  When you combine this method with an integrated marketing campaign, the results are often compelling.  In fact, our business has achieved record growth over the past two years using this exact formula.  Here is an example:

I emailed the C-level executives of an organization I thought would be a great fit for our solutions.  The CEO opened my email several times, so I called and left him a voice mail.  A week or so later, a member of his marketing staff filled out the form on our website and asked for a meeting.  We met with the team the following week, and during the meeting they mentioned receiving my emails and reading a book our CEO had published.  We reach them with a multi-dimensional integrated campaign, and I called high and emailed wide.  They became a client shortly thereafter.

Integrated Marketing + Calling and Emailing High and Wide = More Business.

Sell More & Work Less – Power Tip Excerpt

Once you have completed your Prospect Scorecard, you can leverage your Virtual Buyer Persona and create a cutoff point to determine if your suspect is a high quality prospect. For example, if you have a prospect which is at least a 7 (out of a maximum score of 10), and has a buyer persona matching your criteria, you then know your prospect is an in profile prospect from a quantitative standpoint. If they score only a 3, they are obviously questionable. If they are a “3,” it doesn’t mean you can’t sell them your solution but it is less likely you will do so. With limited time and resources, you want to spend time with people who can and will buy.

If you are selling a very simple B2C solution over the Internet, your scorecard may only have three or four criteria. A simple survey, or a few well framed questions during the potential transaction, can help you determine who matches your criteria. Take the time to create your scorecard, it’s truly worthwhile no matter what type of business you run. Often helpful is including your partners, colleagues or even friends and family in your scorecard creation process. For instance, start writing down your client’s attributes on a white board or piece of paper, including industry, revenue size, employees, growth, geography, circumstances (growth, contraction, other), and the reasons they purchased. Whittle these attributes to the most important 10. Next, rank your current prospects against this profile to help you create your pipeline of “hot prospects,” or you may refer to these as “pipeline worthy” prospects. You’re likely to close business when you find a high prospect score and a match with your buyer persona.

But, how much time and effort should you expend on these tasks? An hour or two per week reviewing your prospects and pipeline is worthwhile for most entrepreneurs or small businesses. Spending more time with those likely to buy should be your virtual credo. Virtual sales efforts are fast and efficient, refine your process and look to optimize your prospect review if you’re spending more than 10 percent of your time on these types of tasks.

Webinar: Case Study Review of Highly Successful eMarketing, Webinar & Social Media Campaign

Our colleagues at StartMarketingTech are offering a complimentary web seminar on Thursday that will discuss eMarketing, webinars and social media marketing – all important topics for a 2012 agency marketing campaign. This presentation will not be agency specific, but will be targeting B2B salespeople which directly translates to commercial P&C and group benefits producers.

How eMarketing and Social Media Marketing Produced Millions in Software Sales

Join us for this brief, educational web seminar. Our team of marketing experts will provide a case study review of how an integrated eMarketing, webinar and social media marketing campaign resulted in millions of dollars of software sales for an emerging SaaS solution. The unique approach and hands-on methodology used has helped many software and tech companies grow the top and bottom line. We will be joined by the StartMarketingTech CEO, the author of Sell More & Work Less. Topics include:

* Building an effective target prospect & email list
* Social Media Marketing Strategies
* eMarketing Campaign Design
* Web Seminar Best Practices
* Integrated Web Marketing to close more business

Date & Time: January 19th at Noon ET

To Register: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/959508065

For more information: http://www.startmarketingtech.com/

Marketing Sauce

Once a month or so, my wife and I invest our Sunday in the careful production of spaghetti sauce.  We use her family recipe, which begins with 3 pounds of ground sirloin, 10 large cans of tomatoes and a page long list of vegetables, spices, herbs and other goodies – and ends with two very large pots of delicious sauce.

It takes about an hour to cook the meat, chop the veggies, and to measure and mix each of the other ingredients.  Once everything is simmering on the stove, we wait patiently for 3+ hours while the concoction cooks.  After eating the initial celebratory meal, we package up all the extra sauce and freeze it for future Sundays.  Factoring in the shopping and cleanup, its long process.

The key elements to sauce success are the variety of ingredients and time.  If any of the ingredients are neglected, the sauce does not produce the optimum result.  Too little garlic or a lack of fresh basil can cause me to miss the target.  Not enough patience will result in an undercooked, mediocre product that crushes my ROI.

Executing a marketing campaign is very much like cooking sauce.  With meat and tomatoes you have a foundation that could sustain you, but with a variety of spices, herbs, vegetables and a splash of wine you have a delicious product that will feed you for a long time.  Tasting the sauce early on will allow you to measure your progress, but will not be a clear indicator of your future results and return.

Integrating several web marketing initiatives will over time yield a superior result to traditional programs, as long as you are willing to wait until it has cooked long enough for all the flavors to come together.

Sell More & Work Less – Tip 1: Put Your Car Keys on Your Desk and Leave Them There

For 101 tips like these, check out our new book on Amazon.com

Sell More & Work Less: Web Selling Techniques Everyone Should Use – Now Available

Sell More & Work LessSell More & Work Less is a web selling tips book revolving around my 4-Phase Sales Process which helps business professionals quickly learn and apply many new web sales tips and techniques to improve their sales effectiveness. Simply said, allowing them to sell more and work less. The 4-Phase Virtual Sales Process facilitates the transition to a web based sales model and the greater profit potential, improved methods of selling and more flexible business and personal lifestyle this affords many salespeople and businesses, aspiring entrepreneurs and existing sole proprietors. Readers can replicate the 4-Phase Virtual Sales Process to create their own tailored sales process using the techniques explained in this web selling tips and techniques book.

Author Alan Blume was fortunate to be assisted by three “in the trenches” coauthors, Mike Lauducci, me and Andrew Blume in the writing of this web selling tips book.

Sell More & Work Less is now available on Amazon, the Kindle version is expected later in January. http://www.amazon.com/Sell-More-Work-Less-Techniques/dp/ …

StartUpSelling 2 Minute Sales Pro: Prospect Meetings

Webinar Summary: Qualify Your Pipeline with The Prospect Scorecard

Qualify Your Pipeline with The Prospect Scorecard

Presented by StartUpSelling, Inc.

Our Speakers: Alan Blume & John Scranton

Agenda

  • What is it The Prospect Scorecard?
  • How do you currently describe prospects?
  • How do you create a Scorecard? (Live Example)
  • How do you use the Prospect Scorecard?
  • How to obtain your sample Scorecard
What is the Prospect Scorecard?
  • Quantitative Prospect Qualification Tool
  • Allows Salespeople to Measure Who Will Buy
  • Available via iPhone App or Microsoft Excel
Why is the Scorecard Important?
  • Objective pipeline measurement system, part of the 4-Phase Sales Process
  • How many salespeople have described a prospect as Hot? Cold?
  • What does that mean?
  • An 8 out of 10 is much more valuable
  • Accurate numerical scores show the true strength of a sales pipeline
  • “I have a bunch of hot prospects.” vs. “I have a 10, two 9’s, and three 8’s – with BUD”.
How do I create a Scorecard?
  • Determine the Attributes of your best clients
  • We suggest no more than 10
  • Examples could be:
    • Company Size
    • Geographic Location
    • Industry
    • Structure
    • Employees
  • Create  Prospect Qualifier Acronym
  • Lets see a live example…

What are our qualifying attributes?

  1. $2 to $50 Million in Revenue
  2. Have access to sufficient Budget
  3. Open to Outsourcing
  4. Insufficient Marketing Resources
  5. Specialized or Verticalized

Bonus Point: Referral or Cross-Sale

What is our Prospect Qualifier Acronym?

B – Budget

U– Urgency

D – Decision Maker

Other examples: BUNT, BUTANE, RENT, OUT, PUNT, etc.

Using the Prospect Scorecard
  • Run each through your scorecard
  • Measure their attributes against those of your best clients
  • Creates as objective value of your prospect’s likelihood to purchase
  •  This will show you who is worth your largest time investment
  • The Prospect Scorecard is one of the many sales & marketing tools we provide

Question & Answer Session